Plane is damaged after takeoff - where do they go while they figure it out?

Factual Questions
1

In a video about tail strikes they mentioned that pilots aren’t always aware it has happened, or may be unsure. I’m assuming they have a a checklist or procedure to determine what’s wrong, and if the plane is still safe to fly.

So, where do they point they plane while they work through that process/problem?

I’m assuming first step is to let ATC know. I’m also assuming that both pilots will be to focused on running through the checklist to maintain a standard holding pattern or plan maneuvers through busy airspace.

I know modern autopilot can do a LOT, but AIUI, they’re mostly limited to following a preplanned flightpath.

2

This video goes into decent detail, by an airline pilot, answering pretty much exactly this question.

But, the brief answer is, they either turn around and go back, or divert to another airport. They never assume that the plane is safe to fly to its destination.

3

in the case of the Space Shuttle they were looking at a plan to dock it to the international space station if they found damage once they reached orbit. That was after the 2003 problem where there was a hole in a wing that caused the failure on the way back. Don’t know if they finalized that plan.

4

Not that it matters now. :frowning:

5

I would first like to say that I am not a pilot and all of my knowledge on this topic comes from watching youtube videos of ATC conversations.

If something happens on takeoff, the pilots will generally contact ATC pretty quickly and will say what happened and what their immediate intentions are. It’s also possible that they did not notice whatever incident happened, and maybe someone in the airport tower saw something or someone on another plane saw something. In any event, they generally either return to the airport or divert to a nearby airport.

They have a couple of choices. They can declare an emergency, or they can choose not to. It depends on how serious the problem is. You would think that losing an engine would always be an emergency, but I just watched a video last night where the pilot did not declare an emergency for a lost engine. It was a 747, which is designed to take off on 3 engines, fly on 2, and can land with just 1 engine working, and the plane wasn’t heavily loaded, so I guess the pilot was like eh, whatever, I lost an engine, I’m diverting to your airport, but it’s not an emergency. ATC still gave the plane priority. ATC did verify with the pilot twice that he wasn’t declaring an emergency, so I guess they thought that was a little odd.

They can also declare a pan-pan, which is saying that you have a problem but that it’s not an emergency (i.e. there’s no immediate danger to anyone’s life). An example of this was a small plane that had a pilot who was training and an instructor. The plane developed a problem with its elevator in that it got stuck somewhat and could only deflect so far upward. The instructor took control of the plane and declared a pan-pan and they went back to the airport. The instructor felt that he still had enough elevator control that it wasn’t an emergency.

If there is an emergency, the plane may have to dump fuel, or it may have to land with an overweight condition.

Generally, even though the pilots are dealing with something, they generally can follow ATC directions like level off there, turn to a particular heading, or whatever. If the pilots can’t comply, they will usually immediately say so (negative, we’ll be in the Hudson…). The pilots may request a lower altitude, or they may request a turn in a particular direction, if it is a two-engine plane and one of the engines has gone out for example. ATC is generally very helpful and will route other traffic away from the emergency aircraft, and will often ask the pilots what runway they would like to land on.

ATC will also put them into a holding pattern somewhere if the pilots request that, so that they can run some checklists or dump fuel. I’ve seen videos where the pilots have just requested a longer than usual return path to the airport so that they have a little extra time to run a couple of checklists.

For an emergency, ATC will also ask for fuel remaining and souls on board, and emergency services will also want to know if there are any hazardous materials on board. ATC usually says “when able” (or something similar) when asking this question. In other words, fly the plane first, answer ATC questions second.

ATC may roll out emergency vehicles even if it’s not an emergency and the pilot does not request it.

Once the plane lands, the runway will usually be closed immediately, and a safety car will inspect the runway to make sure there’s no problem, like no bits of the aircraft fell off and are now in the middle of the runway.

They will often close the runway and do an inspection if there was some sort of problem on takeoff as well, whether it’s a tail strike or a blown engine or a tire blowout or whatever. I’ve seen a couple of videos where the pilots said that they had some sort of indication on their engine but had no idea what the problem was, then ATC calls them back a couple of minutes later and tells them that they found a dead bird on the runway, so obviously the plane sucked a bird into its engine.

6

there have been cases where planes went way off course and did not reply to the radio and they sent up a fighter plane to see what the problem was. Here is 1 example:
1999 South Dakota Learjet crash - Wikipedia

7

If it happens during take-off the pilot will still be talking to the tower. He hasn’t handed off to ATC yet. He’d just tell the tower his situation, declare an emergency and he’d have all resources available to help him. If high enough, he’d turn around and land on the closest runway. (If not, we’ll probably read about it in the paper) If the pilot has changed to ATC, then they would ask what the pilot wanted to do and help facilitate it. The pilot has the choice here, he’s #1 priority now for ATC. I’ve listened to many recordings of emergency situations and it’s really clear to tell the level of experience of the pilot. Pro pilots fly the airplane no matter what’s happening, amateur pilots try to get the controller to make decisions. The controllers won’t.

This is yet another reason why you want a 20,000 hour professional in the front of your plane when something happens. Self-flying planes will never match the skill of a 20,000 hour pilot.

8

we had a regional plane crash here locally around 20 years ago . The pilot was being paid less than local bus drivers. She made $15k a year. Hopefully pay is better now.

9

Idiots like me who don’t know better often just refer to all of the controllers as “ATC”. I know that there is often a different controller for ground, tower, and for different areas once you are away from the tower. I don’t know what the different controllers are called.

I know that Kennedy Steve referred to himself as “ground” and would say things like “contact Tower on <whatever frequency>” (Kennedy Steve was an entertaining ground controller, you can search for him on youtube, he has since retired). I don’t know how standard the names like ground and tower are.

10

Former airline pilot, current charter pilot here.

While it’s true there are different types of controllers, a tower controller is a part of ATC. Of course, you’re also assuming the aircraft took off from a towered airport, which is not always the case either. But in both situations the aircraft will likely soon be speaking to ATC in some form or another soon enough.

Anyway, I’ll tell a story about when I found myself in a situation after takeoff when I was at a regional airline. After departing a major east coast airport we got a “bleed leak” indication. That’s when very hot air from the engines is getting somewhere it’s not supposed to. It can lead to all sorts of bad things. Although we were fairly certain it was an instrument problem, not an actual bleed leak (too long to go into the details), we had to treat it as the real thing.

I was the pilot flying that leg and the captain was working the radios. He took a couple of actions immediately (we call them “memory items”), then we both briefly conferred and agreed on an immediate return. He turned his attention to running a checklist and turned the radios over to me.

I briefly explained the issue to ATC, declined to declare an emergency, and advised that we needed some time to get things in order for landing. They began issuing holding instructions, but since I was going to be on my own for a while until the captain was done with his tasks, I asked for delaying vectors instead (less of a workload for me). They complied and took us out over the ocean near the airport, and a few minutes later we landed normally. No big deal, we deplaned the passengers, got another plane and off we went to the original destination.

11

Thank you for the great answers so far.

This is exactly the type of situation and time window I’m asking about: something’s wrong, but the pilots don’t yet know exactly what and/or don’t know the scope of the problem/damage, so they don’t know if it’s safe to continue their flight. In a few more minutes (after they’ve worked through their processes/checklists) they’ll know more and decide to continue, land, or whatever.

12

They are absolutely standard.

All of the folks on the other side of the radio who control, permit, and coordinate the movement of aircraft, with one exception*, are components of Air Traffic Control.

If we take a hypothetical trip in an aircraft, lets say from Boston’s Logan Airport to JFK in New York, there are several air traffic controllers we will talk to. Starting in Boston, before starting our flight, we will talk to Boston Clearance to get permission to enter the whole ATC system, and get a route to JFK that jives with other aircraft and controllers. This happens before we push back from the terminal and start the engines - its one of the things taking place on the flight deck before the flight

Once we are ready to go, before crossing the movement/non movement line (a yellow single solid line with a yellow single dashed line parallel to it), we will talk to Boston Ground. The Ground Controller will give us permission to be on the taxiways all the way up to the runway, and make sure no one bumps into us.

Once at the runway, Ground will hand us off to Boston Tower. The Tower controller owns the runway pavement and all of the air out 4 or so miles and up to 2500’. The Tower controller will make sure no one is on the runway or about to land, coordinate with the next controller so we don’t surprise him or her, and clears us for takeoff.

At 200 to 300 feet above ground, Tower will hand us off to Boston Departure. This controller owns from about 1000’ to 14,000’ (it is often 10,000’ but Boston goes up to 14,000). This controller oversees the initial climb, and makes sure we don’t bump into anyone landing at Boston or any of the other nearby airports. Our final altitude will be 24,000 feet, but we are only authorized to 14k right now (since that is the ceiling of departure’s airspace). Before we hit 14,000, Departure will have us contact Boston Center. Both Boston Approach and Boston Center are in the same building in Nashua, New Hampshire.

Center owns up to 60,000 feet. As we reach 24,000, and are moving smartly across Cape Cod and the Islands, we will pass from center controller to center controller. Eventually we will pass from Boston Center’s airspace to New York Center’s airspace.

We now reverse what we did going up. As we descend we will cross from New York Center to New York Approach. Approach will handle the descent towards JFK, handing us off to other approach controllers as we pass from sector to sector. Another approach controller will get us lined up for the final approach i to JFK, making sure we have enough space in front of us and behind us so no one bumps into us, or we don’t bump into someone else. Once we are about 10 miles from the airport, approach will have us contact Kennedy Tower.

Just like when we left Boston, Tower owns the pavement of the runway and 5 or so miles around it. Tower will allow us to land and taxi off the runway, then have us “contact Ground.” The Ground controller will own us for the trip to the terminal, making sure we don’t bump someone or head off where we shouldn’t be.

Simple, no?

*Some larger airports have a ramp controller who controls pushbacks from the terminal, but does not control over the movement non movement line. The ramp controllers are usually employed by airlines, not the FAA.

13

For tail strikes specifically, there is not much to do. There’s a good chance the pilots don’t know it happened, and if they do know it happened there’s no way of knowing what damage has been done. I wouldn’t necessarily assume there was a checklist for a tail strike. I fly a BAe146 and there is no checklist.

Assuming another problem that requires a return to land and following some checklists, the general idea is to reduce your workload as much as possible. One pilot will fly (this may just mean monitoring the autopilot) and the other will action the checklist. For the flying, you may elect to enter a holding pattern or just follow vectors from ATC. The holding pattern requires a minute or so to setup in the flight management computer, but once done the autopilot will happily fly it for as long as you need. Flying vectors doesn’t require any setup but it does involve a bit of radio chat with ATC when they want to change your heading. Which one I’d choose to do depends on the situation.

I can give a couple of examples from my own experiences.

  1. Taking off in BAe146, after selecting the gear up, the red “gear unsafe” indicator for the nose wheel stayed on. It was decided to return rather than continue so we told ATC we wanted to come back and, as we were above our max allowed landing weight, how long we’d have to burn off fuel for. There wasn’t much advantage in entering a holding pattern so we just had ATC vector us towards the start of the approach while we did the checklist. Once we were ready and our fuel state was low enough, ATC cleared us for the approach.

  2. Similar problem as above except it was in an Avro RJ100 and it happened quite close to our destination. We had to decide where to take it. Our destination is where the passengers want to be but we didn’t have any engineering support there so fixing it would be difficult. There’s also the issue of whether the landing gear will be safe for landing and our destination was light on emergency services. We had fuel to return to our departure port so we did that. No special handling was required from ATC because we could run the checklist while we flew the standard route home.

14

The space shuttle could dock at the space station. I guess then the problem is how to get the people back to earth if the Shuttle is not safe to use. They would be stuck there for a while until they could come back via the Russian capsules.

15

IANAP, but I’m doubtful about being able to find a bird on the runway after it passed through an engine, or at least a bird that’s even nominally intact. Here’s what the inside of a gas turbine engine looks like; it’s basically a kerosene-powered Cuisinart, with hundreds of knives just a slicing-and-dicing. I would expect that in the event of a bird ingestion event during takeoff roll (assuming a bird small enough to not immediately disable the engine), Runway inspectors might find a thinly dispersed patch of meat and blood spatter.

Are there reports that indicate the discovery of a pretty-much-intact bird on the runway that definitely passed through an engine?

16

The intact bird on the runway was probably a friend of the one that went through the engine. In other words, dead birds on the runway is indicative of birds interacting with some parts of the airplane.